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calamity which can befall any nation.

This is no fine-spun doctrine, fit for parlors and lecture-rooms, but
not for counting-rooms and congressional halls. It is solid, durable
fact. History is full of it; and he is a mere mole, and blinder than
midnight, who cannot perceive it. The spectacle of nations falling
into sudden, chronic, careless imbecility is frequent and glaring
enough for even wilfulness to see; and the central secret of this
sad phenomenon, so I am _sure_, has been suggested here. When the
socializing faith of a nation has perished, the alternative for
it becomes this, that it can be stable only as it is stagnant, and
vigorous only as it is lawless.

Of this I am sure; but whether Bullion Street can be willing to
understand it I am not so sure. Yet if it cannot, or some one in its
behalf, grass will grow there. And why should it refuse heed? Who is
more concerned? Does Bullion Street desire chaos? Does it wish that
the pith should be taken out of every statute, and the chief value
from every piece of property? If not, its course is clear. This nation
has a vital faith,--or had one,--well grounded in its traditions.
Conserve this; or, if it has been impaired, renew its vigor. This
faith is our one sole pledge of order, of peace, of growth, of all
that we prize in the present, or hope for the future. That it is
a noble faith, new in its breadth, its comprehension and
magnanimity,--this would seem in my eyes rather to enhance than
diminish the importance of its conservation. Yet the only argument
against it is, that it is generous, broad, inspiring; and the only
appeal in opposition to it must be made to the coldness of skepticism,
the suicidal miserliness of egotism, or the folly and fatuity of
ignorance.

Our nation has a political faith. Will you, conservative men, conserve
this, and so regain and multiply the blessing it has already brought?
or will you destroy it, and wait till, through at least a century
of tossing and tumult, another, and that of less value, is grown? A
faith, a crystallizing principle for many millions of people is not
grown in a day; if it can be grown in a century is problematical. The
fact, and the choice, are before you.

Our nation _had_ a faith which it cherished with sincerity and
sureness. If half the nation has fallen away from this,--if half the
remaining moiety is doubtful, skeptical about it,--if, therefore,
we are already a house divided against itself and tott